A simple entry this week, with a car that is most unusual in Australia even though it must still be relatively common in North America. I won’t be making a habit of featuring recent imports that have remained left-hand drive (cars less than 25 years old must be converted to right-hand drive), because there has been an absolute flood of them imported over the last few years. But this isn’t the case with this car as you can clearly see the lack of steering wheel through the window!

I saw the distinctive shape of a B-body GM car as I was driving through Bendigo in country Victoria earlier this year, and thanks to some traffic I was able to get a bit closer to it. I was surprised to see that it was a 2-door coupe, but thanks to the slow rate of changes and lack of badging I can’t pin down what year or specification it is. From what I have read, GM ceased local assembly of Canadian-sourced CKD North American cars in 1968, so anything later than that has been imported either by an enterprising dealer or a private owner. Note the amber turn signals required to comply with Australian Design Rules that were installed as part of the compliance process; were these used in North America or something that would have been made locally?

The only thing I could learn is that this registration plate was issued during 1989, and it appears entirely feasible that is when the car was imported and converted, and likely in the hands of the same owner ever since. And a final quirk is the small tow ball mounted to the left of the main one, not something I remember seeing before.

33 Comments

That’s an interesting find where it is. The amber turn signals were available as the Caprice did see limited export duty globally. It was a popular car for American diplomats. If it was imported in 1989, it would’ve already been about 3 years old. I’m pretty sure that there were no coupes after 1987, and I think that the taillights shown were last used in 1986. I just don’t see a 3 year old Caprice coupe being anyone’s “must have” to the point of paying to import and convert to RHD.

There’s still a strong Chev thing over here. I see newish Holdens wearing a bowtie on almost a weekly basis, so I reckon there would be a few that might want a new Caprice. They’re more likely to go a Camaro or pickup though.

Are you sure Don? I see em here with complete Chevrolet Lumina badging, some export models might have been let onto the local market, we had Australian built Chevrolet Statemans and Constatias back in the 70s new.

I don’t think we see the coupes much over here anymore either, at least not in the areas that aren’t extremely populated with domestic iron. I like the exhaust pipes, those aren’t stock so someone clearly cherishes their ride. It’s certainly worth posting so thank you!

Interesting — particularly the amber turn signals. This tail lamp design was used from 1980-85… all in red in the US of course. If my memory serves me correctly, all three red lamps flashed for the turn signals in the US-market cars, so I suppose in this amber-lensed Australian version only the outer most light flashed.

Also, from the pictures it appears that there may be brackets for rear-seat shoulder belts — those didn’t become standard in US-market Caprices until 1989. (Of course what I think may be seatbelt brackets may be something else; it’s hard to tell.)

The taillamps with amber turn signal indicators are OEM export version for Japan and Europe. Some part departments in the US sales centres stocked them for a while, especially the one in Ohio.

Of course, the three-panel flat design is ridiculously easy to be converted to the ‘export version’.

However, I think having the amber turn signal indicators in the middle panel would be great tribute to all of Canadian-sourced Chevrolet Impala that were imported and sold in Australia until 1968. This guy did just thate in the photo below:

Cool find for Australia. And these are quite uncommon here in the US too.

As for the style, these left me decidedly cold. As great as the prior Caprice coupe was (with its sexy beltline kickup and wrapped rear glass) this one was just so uninspired. Not that the final Ford version was any better. I think the final GM C body coupes were the only ones of that last generation of big 2 doors that had any attractiveness to them at all.

VERY rarely do you see Caprices of this vintage anymore, and when you do they are riding on 20+ inch wheels and are painted really oddball colors.
When new, many of these in the U.S. came with simulated wire wheels and most definitely rolled on whitewall tires.
Caprices usually had a stripe of chrome running along the bottom of the body from front bumper to rear bumper….is this perhaps an Impala or was the chrome left off as part of the “export spec” package?

I know there’s a general preference for the 77-79s but I like these a little better. I’m a notchback guy. Wish the ambers were between the reds rather than at the ends though, I’m sure that’s for regulatory reasons but that would be much more attractive

The thing that gets me about those is the Hoffmiester kink, It just makes the roofline whose most dramatic characteristic is that folded back glass look disjointed because the angle kickup doesn’t flow into the line of the rear glass. The B pillar doesn’t do it any favors either, they should have been hardtops, regulation fears be damned

Nice find ! .
.
I’d love to see the RHD dashboard .
.
I remember these very well , they were good cars , I preferred the four door ones .
.
Very few left in Southern California , land of no rust because they were never popular when used so they went straight from one or two owners to the Ghetto and Barrios where they got chewed up and scrapped in a matter of years , a sad thing .
.
-Nate

In 1987 I bought a Caprice Classic Landau coupe new! Last year for the two-door body style “sport coupe” as I think the brochure called it. To this day the best car I’ve ever owned…smooth, powerful and a looker with its whitewalls and wire wheels. The coupes were always rare but the sedans were EVERYwhere back in the day…but even those are seldom seen today.

Assuming the pictured car is nearly stock, it appears to be a 1980 to 1982 Caprice Classic coupe with a diesel Olds 350.

The individual six tail lights separated by body color is used on all 1980 to 1985 Caprice coupes & sedans.

Chevrolet skipped the 1983 model year for coupes.

The small Chevrolet block script on the passenger side is in the style of the 1980 to 1982 cars. In 1983 a larger Chevrolet block script was introduced for the sedan, with the coupe receiving it upon reintroduction in 1984.

Here’s the back cover of the 1981 Caprice & Impala brochure showing a Caprice Landau coupe, note the small Chevrolet block script:

Look at the front fender, between the side marker and front wheel. There are two badges. The upper on is a Caprice Classic script as found on all 1980 to 1985 Caprices. The only time the factory put another script below the “Caprice Classic” was to denote the diesel engine. Here’s a pic of a 1981 Caprice Classic Diesel as reference:

That small trunk script looks an awful lot like the one on my ’79 Malibu. Maybe the Malibu had it a year before the Caprice? (Or maybe you were excluding the pre-facelift cars for the purpose of this discussion.)

The coupes are pretty uncommon these days. I preferred the earlier version with the folded-glass backlight, but the ’80 to ’87 versions aren’t bad either, especially the one-year-wonder ’87 (the only coupe with the wide composite lamps as opposed to sealed-beams). The rally wheels are always a good choice too.